Krishnan GiriSenior Project Manager| InfosysNorth Richland Hills, Ks, United States
We are running a re-engineering program in agile with replacing legacy application with 10% changes in the features. Any advise on how agile can be leveraged in this kind of scenario? Saving Changes...
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Federico VarchavskyBusiness Development Manager| PM HuntingBuenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Hi Krishnan,
Yours is a great question. Not only regarding your current inquiry but in general. Is Agile right/the best for my/any project?
In my opinion, you can always get great benefits from using an agile approach.
Of course, it's not just a magic formula or silver bullet. You need to think about its environment and context.
This is what I think about when and where Agile is easily and more beneficial to be implemented:
- For products/services which may be delivered incrementally, and iteratively.
- For projects when the client is able to be very involved and available for the project team.
- For projects in which there are many changes and or updates that need to be taken into consideration during the development process.
There are probably many more things to be considered for using Agile or not.
The most important of all of them, in my personal opinion, is people.
Are they ready to go Agile? Will it help them do their work? Will the company stand by the people while they're growing and learning to become more Agile?
Finally, in my opinion, to answer your question I'd say Yes. It'd be beneficial tu use Agile if implemented in the correct manner.
Hope this helps you. Saving Changes...
Tom MillerConsultant| dba: Galenson ConsultingLawrence, Ks, United States
If the end goal is likely to be a moving target then the adaptive processes of Agile are more likely to allow you to maximize the value added whenever you stop re-engineering. Saving Changes...
Krishnan GiriSenior Project Manager| InfosysNorth Richland Hills, Ks, United States
Hi Federico,
Thanks for your explanation.
In my organisation, the Agile is used for large modernization or re-engineering projects. One main reason for not going with traditional waterfall is that interdependent projects are evolving and the requirements captured a while back is obsolete now. In a multi-year projects, this is very critical.
Pros :-
Even though we are trying to re-engineer the same legacy functionality in a modern technology, architecture and improved business process with clear current requirements, Agile is helping us to inspect and adapt easily across each releases.
Cons:-
Less need of Product owner involvement in capturing user stories. The technical team could understand the system and replicate that with little involvement from PO. Product backlog grooming is driven by team predominantly.
I would like to hear from others how it worked for them !!!
Regards
Krishnan Saving Changes...
Krishnan GiriSenior Project Manager| InfosysNorth Richland Hills, Ks, United States
Hi Tom,
I agree..
As we re-engineer and deliver value with various releases, We can stop when we don't see significant value coming.
Thanks
Krishnan Saving Changes...
arlene trimbleAssistant IT Director| Local GovernmentAlamo, Ca, United States
I agree with everyone's posting. Agile would work in your scenario as long as there is decomposition of epic tasks and frequent iterations so that you can do the necessary inspect and adapt and learn from the continuous retrospectives.
Just wondering if your 'product owner' or sponsor would be someone from IT or Admin who oversees the infrastructure portion. and you may have some business sponsor who need to provide signoff for the functionality changes. These two owners could potentially be your backlog owners. Saving Changes...
Krishnan GiriSenior Project Manager| InfosysNorth Richland Hills, Ks, United States
You are right... Product owner role is jointly done by IT and business, reason being IT decodes the business process of current system and business approves the revised improved business process. 80% of product owner role is handled by IT.
Saving Changes...
Priya PatraDelivery Director| Capgemini India Technology Services LtdMumbai, India
I am a little concerned, when you say the product owner is less involved as the IT team could understand the requirements, as you rightly said it is a Cons.
Suggest active Product owner involvement not only for understanding the current requirements, but also to understand the vision of the program down the line. This will help the team to keep end goal in mind, even when they are delivering the quick and near term deliverables, the concept of Agile Architecture or emerging - interntional architecture.
As i understand this is a re-engineering program consisting of multiple interdependent projects, Product owners involvement in must.
To answer to your question Agile is very well suited for such projects, I have executed one myself where in we were mordernizing from mainframes to Web and it was a success !!
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
To determine the "right way" to do something you have to take into account several factors that belongs to organizational architecture. But let me say that I have been using agile concepts (agile is not IT or software related, agile is not a method or methodology) to perform re-engineering from year 2000 up to day and thanks God it works find. If you ask me, after performing re-engineering following a "traditional" process let me say that at the end we applied agile concept without notice that. It is quit impossible to perform re-engineering without applying agile concepts. Saving Changes...
Beyond reason, I suppose it is more of a challenge, Even a re-engineering project may have unclear and constantly changing scope, agile teams can work in iterations taking one bite at a time, and subsequently consuming product backlog towards the ultimate achievement of this kind of project. So my answer would be YES it is possible. Saving Changes...
